Tidings of Comfort and Joy
by wafische
Summary: A Christmas Story. Pleas R&R.
1. I

For the majority of the school year, the students of Casper High went about their business with indifference. School could be a place of amusement, but often it was merely where the government made them go for most of the day five days a week. Holidays were merely an excuse to get out and added nothing to anyone's enjoying of the place. But somehow, no matter what, no matter how the year had gone, all this changed the day before Christmas vacation.

Despite its name, the resident ghost-hunters, and the constant hauntings, Christmas in Amity Park was as merry and joyous as anywhere else in the country. Teachers who were normally as tough as titanium loosened up and let students watch movies and play games in class. Almost every club, team and organisation in the school did some major project for the season. Even most of the shallow, self-centred popular crowd managed to act generous (Paulina and Dash among the exceptions, of course). Decorating began on December the first, and by the time the last day before vacation came around, the school was like a Christmas museum.

It was in these festive settings that Mr. Lancer walked down the hall. He had discarded his usual teacher's uniform, instead wearing a Santa hat, a brown woollen turtleneck, and kacki pants. His hands behind his back, his eyes closed, and his mind content, he headed to his classroom, whistling the tune of "Jingle Bells" to himself as he walked. He passed right by the open door to the teacher's lounge, taking not the slightest notice of the flickering lights of the television set. On screen was a weather report. Had Lancer stopped to see it, he would have heard the predictions.

"…And we have that massive storm system coming in that caused devastation all over the Midwest," the weatherman was saying, "Responsible for several deaths, injuries, and power outages, the storm system has picked up strength and set it's sights on Amity Park, so get those emergency supplies ready, folks, 'cause we'll be needing them."

_(He's a Phantom)  
(Danny Phantom)_

**_Yo, Danny Fenton, he was just fourteen  
When his parents built a very strange machine  
It was designed to view a world unseen_**

_(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)  
_  
**_When it didn't quite work  
His folks, they just quit  
But then Danny took a look inside of it  
There was a great big flash  
Everything just changed  
His molecules got all rearranged!_**

_(Phantom, Phantom)_

**_When he first woke up  
He realized  
He had snow white hair  
And glowing green eyes  
He could walk through walls,  
Disappear, and fly!  
He was much more unique than the other guy! _**

It was then that he knew what he had to do  
He had to stop all the ghosts  
That were coming through  
He's here to fight  
For me and YOU!

_(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)  
(He's gonna catch 'em all cuz he's Danny Phantom)_

**Gonna catch them all cuz he's** _Danny Phantom  
_

_**Tidings of Comfort and Joy**_

"Ah, Christmastime!" Lancer addressed his class flamboyantly, "I love it so! Even more than Spirit Week! Presents, family, good will, peace on Earth…one couldn't ask for a more perfect meaning to a holiday!" for once, his fourth-hour English class actually agreed with his praise on a subject. Almost everyone in the class was dressed in Christmas garb, looking forward to the two weeks' vacation ahead of them. Everyone had something to look forward to; vacations, family visits, food, and presents…even if you'd long outgrown ol' Saint Nick, there was something about gift-giving on Christmas that made you feel five years old again.

"Now normally, I'd assign you a book report to do over the long break…" Lancer said, and some started to groan, "But for the Christmas season, we'll instead be watching a video I'd like to call _A Muppet Christmas Carol_," he pulled the video out from behind his back, popped it into the VCR hooked up to the TV he had brought into the room for today, turned out the lights, and hit PLAY. Within minutes, the entire class was engrossed in the rendition of Charles Dickens's classic tale. They watched Gonzo's introduction to the story, got through the songs of Kermit and the Marley brothers, and had just finished the visit to Scrooge's past when the bell rang, sending them off to lunch or their next period, depending on their schedules. Tucker and Sam were stuck waiting for the crowd to pass on their way to lunch. Lancer jumped out himself, skipping down to the cafeteria for some coffee before his next class.

"Ah, Christmas," Tucker smiled, "Three hundred and sixty-four days I spend waiting for this day. A time of reflection. A time of joy. A time of…"

"Mindless commercialism and corporate greed combined foolish childlike belief in idealistic worlds that can never come true, endless low-quality specials on TV, and people you know making annoying, drawn-out speeches?" Sam cut in dryly. Tucker's smile faded quick.

"Not _another_ anti-popular thing!" he moaned, "Why can't you just ever be _happy_ about a holiday!? You blow off New Years, don't even talk about Valentine's Day, lock yourself in your room on the Fourth of July, don't touch anything food-related on Thanksgiving…the only holiday you don't do some protest for is Halloween, and you don't even make a big deal about that! Get with the season!"

"There's nothing to 'get into,' Tucker," Sam remained defiant. As far as she was concerned, there wasn't any meaning left in Christmas or any other of the holidays Tucker mentioned. It was the same thing, year-in and year-out. The hideous mess of coloured lights was slapped onto every house in a tacky display more fitting for a sign for some sick-minded shabby building in Las Vegas, TV advertisements encouraging people to waste even more of their money on low-quality mass products became more frequent than ever, and always there were mass rushes to the malls and stores by all the people dumb enough to fall for such shameless commercialism. Little kids acted overly sweet, trying to earn "brownie points" with Santa Claus, while parents obsessed over buying gifts for older children who'd long outgrown such juvenile magic. Corporate tyranny played on such young fantasies by using all their foolish notions to attract them to low-priced toys that they would lose, destroy, or abandon before the next holiday. And her family…she didn't want to have to think about it until Christmas. They say "'Tis the Season to be Jolly," but there was nothing jolly about Christmas to Sam.

"You know, you can like stuff that's considered 'in' and still be unique," Tucker said.

"Oh yeah!" Sam said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I forgot all about that! Do what everyone else does and call it a symbol of your individuality!"

"I meant with holidays! Not everybody's unique at everything!"

"I don't try to be, Tucker."

"I'll say," he mumbled. Sometimes Sam was so hypocritical. She was always on his case whenever he went in with trends or social labels. What did she call her Goth act, then?

"Why does everyone always try to change my mind about this!?" Sam suddenly turned angry, "I don't like Christmas! Why can't anyone just accept that!?"

"Because you don't have a good reason!" Tucker shouted back.

"I have plenty of reasons!"

"Besides the anti-popular thing!? Name one!"

"I…" Sam stopped herself. It was true; she did have other reasons; but she'd never told them to anyone before. Not even her own family (like they noticed it happening to begin with). And she didn't feel like giving them to Tucker just so he could keep making fun of her.

"Forget it," she hissed, and, shoving Tucker aside, headed off to lunch.

----

Even the school lunches seemed to improve over the Christmas season, though considering the way they normally turned out, that wasn't saying much. So, to be on the safe side, Danny had brought his own lunch and was now eating away at his sandwich. Tucker and Sam hadn't turned up at their usual table, so he just sat, ate, and waited. After a few minutes Tucker came by, an annoyed look on his face.

"Man, can you believe Sam!?" he said, looking over his shoulder as if she was about to leap out and tackle him, "She's doing another one of her anti-cool things by refusing to do anything for Christmas! She won't even try to like it! How crazy is that!?" he waited, but Danny gave no answer. Danny was staring past Tucker into nothing, a rather indifferent expression on his face.

"Danny?" Tucker asked again, waving his hand in front of his best friend's face. That brought him out of his trance.

"Wha…? Oh, yeah," Danny nodded lightly, "Sure, Tuck. Weird," in no time at all he'd returned to staring into air like before.

"Don't tell me you have the holiday blues too!?" Tucker moaned.

"What? No!" Danny shook his head, "No, I'm…I'm fine, Tuck. It's just…don't worry about. I'm fine," it wasn't a complete lie, but not honest. The truth was, Danny really couldn't understand why he was feeling this way right now. Just last year Christmas had been his favourite holiday. He couldn't wait for it to come, and was as into it, maybe even more, than Tucker, Lancer, and his whole family. Like so many things different this year, he suspected it was his ghost powers that brought about this change. No matter what, he always seemed to be thinking about ghosts whenever something Christmas-related popped up. It was a tradition for the entire Fenton clan to come by FentonWorks for the holidays, and it was a tradition for Danny's mom to fail at an attempt to make cookies several days beforehand. In the past, the smell always reminded Danny of the holiday just on the horizon. This year, all it did was bring back memories of all the times he'd been fried by his various ghost-enemies. Any talk of magic or Santa Claus, and his thoughts instantly turned to what Desiree might be up to now. Reindeer reminded him of hunting, which reminded him of Skulker. And any Christmas special that involved some sort of creature trying to "steal" Christmas; even the Grinch; somehow reminded him of Vlad trying to take away his father's family. On top of all this, this year he didn't feel like he belonged in anything relating to Christmas. His ghost powers seemed to put up a wall between him and all the holiday spirit in the world. He'd been watching his family get ready for the season all month, and honestly, he felt like helping, joining in; he tried forcing himself to do so, but nothing came of it. He felt like he would disrupt the cheerful atmosphere. So he'd done nothing so far for Christmas, and quite honestly found himself feeling depressed and indifferent to the holiday.

"Am I the only sane one of us left!?" Tucker sighed, "What's with you two!?"

"Hey, I already said I'm alright!" Danny said, "I'm just not feeling like doing anything right now, is all."

"Ah, Mr. Foley," Lancer came running up to them, finishing the conversation, "I was on my way back from the cafeteria here, and there was a pencil on the floor, and the coffee went flying, and…" he grinned nervously, "You think you could take a look at my VCR?"

"Sure!" Tucker said cheerfully, forgetting about his arguments with Sam and Danny. He headed off to Lancer's room. Instead of following, Lancer sat across from Danny.

"Why the long face, Mr. Fenton?" he inquired, "Holiday blues?"

"I'm just…thinking," there was too much unease in Danny's voice to be believable. Telling lies or even half-truths to Lancer wasn't as easy as doing the same to Tucker. To his surprise, Lancer smiled.

"Danny, do the words Dickens, Disney, and Suess mean anything to you?"

"Why?"

"Good books. Good movies. Capture the holiday spirit perfectly. Take a look at them."

"You're giving me homework over Christmas break!?" Danny panicked.

"No, no, not homework. Merely suggestion," Lancer said simply.

"Oh. Thanks, but really, I'm fine. You should give that advice to Sam. I'm just preoccupied; Tucker says she actually hates Christmas."

"You know, I was wondering where she was. Usually you three are inseparable," he looked around. Sam was sitting off by herself, her head resting one hand propped up on the table and her other hand poking at her salad with a fork. Her expression was bored and dismal. She barely looked up when Lancer came over and sat across from her.

"Holiday blues, Ms. Manson?" he asked, making the same inquiries he had with Danny.

"If there was enough meaning left in this time of year to justify worrying if someone did have the 'holiday blues,' then yes," Sam muttered, "Tucker try to get you to get me into Christmas?"

"Not quite," Lancer said. Amazingly, he was not put off by Sam's rudeness, "I'm going to give you the same advice I gave Mr. Fenton; read through and watch Dickens, Disney and Suess," with that, the English teacher got up and headed out. Sam looked around and saw Danny, also sitting by himself. His also being negative this time of year was news to her, and surprising news at that. He always seemed to enjoy Christmas. For a second, Sam felt like going over to their usual table and joining him, but reconsidered. After her fight with Tucker she didn't feel like being around anybody that much, even Danny, and talking about the holidays might end up making both of them feel worse. With one last look up at him, she turned her attention back to her salad.

----

The second hand on the school's clocks seemed to go slower than usual as it approached the 12 at the top. Every student in the building (and even some of the teachers) had their eyes on the clocks. The second hand continued to tick away, the suspense mounting with each slight twitch up it made. Then, finally, it reached the twelve. The bell rang. The school seemed to explode from the inside out, everyone rushing out and to their rides. Cheering, paper being tossed high in the air, and jumping up into the air were among the expressions the students chose to employ. Even Mr. Lancer joined in (though he lost himself halfway up on his jump and ended up landing flat on his back). Last out of the building were Danny, Sam and Tucker, Tucker the only one looking excited.

"Freedom at last!" he declared, "And, with everything packed in the van, I go straight from here to our little vacation spot in Maine. Beats the traffic later on," he explained to Danny and Sam. Soon, he heard the honking of a horn, and a red van pulled up, supplies loaded on the top and in the back seat.

"And there's my ride. See you in two weeks!" he called back to Danny and Sam as he ran over. He scrambled into the van like a squirrel, shut the door, and was off with his dad. Danny and Sam stood alone in the doorway, the rest of the student body out on the grounds.

"So…" Danny finally said, "Have fun on break."

"Yeah…" Sam nodded, "Yeah, you two," they stood there for another few minutes. Then the Fenton RV pulled up, almost smashing into the car in front of it.

"See you," Danny said, and he ran over. Jack opened the door for him.

"Danny!" he greeted his son with a grin, "Hop in! We've got a big two weeks ahead of us. The whole Fenton clan headin' up here, your mother's cookies, trees, presents…if there's any time of the year ghosts aren't important, this is it! I've sent off Christmas cards to all my old college buddies and we have enough time to wing by the store to pick up a box of stuffing for the turkey!" he quickly pulled out and hit the gas, speeding towards the store. Jack's comments were now ringing in Danny's ears, and brought out memories of their time in Wisconsin, and how The Box Ghost had escaped yet again last week. With a sigh, he slumped down into his chair, his dad too excited to notice.

Back at the school, Sam looked around, waiting for her folks to arrive. She didn't have to wait long, nor would her car be hard to spot. The shiny black car pulled up, draped in as many flashing Christmas lights as most of the houses around Amity. Christmas carols were blasting away so loudly you could hear them from outside the car with all the windows rolled up. It was sickening, Sam thought. With a nasty scowl on her face, she reluctantly marched over to the car.


	2. II

"Fentons!" Jack shouted, kicking the door open, "We're back! And we got the stuffing!" he dropped the box. The inside of the house was nicely decorated, the satellite on the roof preventing much from being done on the outside. The Christmas tree was set up in the living room, decorated with white lights, bulbs, bells, and other ornaments. The tree was a bit short, dry and scraggly, but the decorations worked wonders. An old, authentic reef was hung on the door. The berries had had to be replaced with fake ones years ago and the needles were sharp and a bit brown but it wasn't in too bad a shape. The mantle held up figures of the visit from the three wise men that Jazz had made as a project in first grade. Mistletoe was hung in a few places around the house, and Jack and Maddie had been "caught" under the plants so many times that Danny now knew all the places _not_ to get caught under in the house. The smell of burning cookies floated in from the kitchen, and the sound of a fire extinguisher being put to use could be heard; Maddie had burnt another batch.

"That's nice, dear," she called back, "Could you bring them in here?"

"Sure thing, Maddie!" Jack grabbed his box from the ground and the one Danny had and headed into the kitchen.

"Jazz, dear, could you get out some more tinsel from the attic?" Maddie yelled.

"Mom!" Jazz was soon running downstairs, a handful of tinsel in her hand, "Don't tell me you burned _another_ batch!?"

"I'm sure Grandma Fenton has something less…charred," Danny looked into the kitchen. Maddie was sliding the black remnants of gingerbread men into the garbage, Jack waving his hands to move out the fumes and the extinguisher smoke. Jazz was tearing down tinsel that had been scorched and re-applying it with the new tinsel from the attic. In spite of the circumstances, they really were _happy_; even Jazz was grinning.

'_Help out,_' a voice echoed in Danny's head. He really did want to; he could feel some surge in his leg, as if the signal to walk had come down from his brain…and then, without alert, an image of himself in ghost form flashed across his mind, and he couldn't go in. Instead, he threw himself down on the couch with a sigh and turned on the TV. It was times like these when he started wishing he could get rid of these powers. He flipped through the channels, trying to find something not related to Christmas. Through the view into the living room from the kitchen, Jazz caught her little brother. She'd been the only one in the house not too preoccupied to notice Danny's lack of holiday spirit. Somehow she knew it had something to do with his ghost powers, but didn't want to bring it up. He could talk about it on his own time. Still, looking at him now, she was starting to think maybe waiting for him wasn't the best idea in this case…

----

The Manson home was almost completely draped in multicoloured lights. A flashing sign read SANTA: LAND HERE, Coca-Cola snowmen were mounted on the roof around it, neon-lit elf designs were clinging to the string of traditional Christmas bulbs, and a Rudolph statue stood by the steps to the house. It was the most overdone house on the entire street. Inside was even more elaborate. The Christmas tree towered to the ceiling, a wonderful tree with full green colour and soft needles. It was elaborately decorated with rainbow lights, bulbs, and ornaments of all kinds. Artificial snow that didn't melt had been sprinkled artfully over the tree. Holly, mistletoe, pine, reefs, and all sorts of holiday plant decorations were lined up everywhere, with red bows and artificial berries planted all over them. Sam stared at the sight before her as she walked in the door from the ride home, her sisters moving past her to sit down on the couch and chat about boys, school, gifts, clothes, and "popular" things. Her dad was on the phone over a business deal on Christmas cards, her mom was cooking turkey, Grandma Manson was speeding around on her wheel chair like mad, and her brother was revising his Christmas list for the seventeenth time in the month.

'_Sickening,_' Sam thought to herself. It had been the same thing every year for as long as they could remember. Nothing but commercialism, indulgence in all the habits she protested against, and complete ignorance to anything but presents, TV specials, and out-doing the neighbours at decorations.

For a moment, Sam felt like saying something that would start a fight. She'd be able to take all this out on someone. She'd be able to tell them all off. And she'd finally tell them the truth. The _real_ reason why she did this every stinking holiday…

'_No_,' she sighed in her head. It wasn't worth it. They never listened anyway. Without saying a word or getting any notice, she headed up to her room to watch TV.

----

By dinnertime, a thick blanket of clouds covered the sky over Amity Park and a cold, crisp breeze blew through the streets. Winter had been mild so far for the city, but people still had their coats on wherever they went. Now that it was approaching nightfall, temperatures were fading. Inside the Fenton home, however, it was toasty warm. Having given up on her cookies, Maddie had gone on to make chicken noodle soup with hot chocolate and cranberries for dinner. The family sat around the table eating quietly, the faint sounds of a Christmas CD coming in from the living room. Maddie and Jack were looking over Christmas cards from the few family members who couldn't make it up this year, so only Jazz was able to notice Danny's sulky mood. He had his bowl of soup in his hands, quickly gulping down the noodles after having finished off the broth. He hadn't cracked a smile since he came home and he'd hardly said a word to anyone. He soon set his bowl down and walked out of the room, slouching.

"Mom, can I be excused?" Jazz asked.

"Sure, dear," Maddie said lightly, not looking up. Jazz headed into the living room, where Danny had thrown his body onto the couch and was staring at the TV screen, an indifferent look in his eye.

"Hey," she said mildly.

"Hey," his voice was as hollow as his expression.

"So, uh, Danny…everything OK?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine," not even Jack would have fallen for that.

"You sure?" Jazz pressed on, though cautiously, "You seem like you have the holiday blues or something."

"I just had a rough week at school. I told you, I'm fine."

"Danny, Lancer's been hopping around in a Santa hat all week and we haven't had any homework all month," Danny sighed.

"I'm just not feeling great right now. It's no big deal…

"Yes, it is. Usually you're jumping off the walls at Christmastime! This year you've hardly spoken to anyone!"

"I told you, it's no big deal!" Danny was starting to get ticked off; did Jazz _always_ have to do this? "I'm a bit tired, you don't have to obsess over it!"

"You're not just tired, Danny," Jazz kept going; this _was_ serious, "You've been like this all month!"

"Yeah?" Danny stood up to face his sister, "Well it's not like you've never had a gloomy day in December before!"

"Not because of Christmas!"

"I am not acting like this because of Christmas!" Danny knew that was a lie, and Jazz did too.

"Danny, I've been watching you all week! Anything related to the holiday season and you're gloomier than the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!" Jazz immediately wished she hadn't picked that parallel, for a dark, depressive look flickered across Danny's face at the word "ghost."

"Is there something wrong in here, kids?" Maddie's voice came from behind them. She and Jack had finished looking over the cards and had picked up on some of their children's conversation.

"Haven't you two noticed!?" Jazz cried in an over-exasperated voice, "Danny's acting all depressed again because of the holidays!"

"Danny? Depressed over December?" Jack laughed, "That's ridiculous! You've seen him at Christmastime, Jasmine. He's like frog the way he hops all over this house! No, if anything's wrong with him, it can't be over Christmas! Right, Danny?" he looked over at his son. Danny tried to get his face to look neutral, but he couldn't hide the truth; not even from Jack.

"Danny?" Jack said again, more concern in his voice, "Is it Christmas?"

"Uh…" Danny didn't want to answer, and Jack gave him no time.

"Great Scot, what's going on here!? Danny upset over Christmas!? That can mean only one thing…"

"DON'T SAY IT!" Jazz shouted without thinking, knowing the only conclusion likely for her dad to make. Too late she caught her mistake. In face of the stares she was getting, she just grinned nervously.

"What _is_ wrong, Danny?" Maddie asked gently. Danny sighed.

"Nothing's 'wrong!' I'm just not feeling that great right now! Sheesh, you think you guys could obsess a little more every time I'm not an over-happy clown!?" that was pushing things a bit far. Jazz, Maddie, and Jack all glared at Danny.

"You watch yourself, mister!" Jack muttered.

"Danny, we're just trying to help!" Jazz said, "You've been acting strange this whole year!"

"Oh, that's great!" Danny rolled his eyes, his voice filled with sarcasm, "It's not bad enough everyone at school calls me a freak! Now my family does too! I have _so_ much to be happy for this Christmas!" he glared at them.

"Now you have crossed a line, young man!" Maddie said, "Your sister's concerned for you and all you do is snap at her?"

"_I'm fine_!" Danny shouted with such force that the rest of his family drew back a bit, "Excuse me if I don't have a good Christmas for one lousy year!" and with that, Danny headed upstairs, slammed the door to his room shut, and threw himself down on the bed.

Right away he started to regret his outburst. There was no way his family could know what he was going through without him telling them his secret, but they were bound to notice that he wasn't himself sooner or later. And they'd want to try and help. He couldn't blame them or get mad at them for being a good family.

"Good one, Danny," he muttered to himself. Now Tucker's brief day as a malevolent ghost-monster ran through his mind. He threw his hands to his head. This was getting ridiculous.

One thing was sure, he thought as he lay down on his back…it was going to be a long vacation.

----

The Manson family were all gathered in the living room around the fire, a Christmas CD blasting away loudly. Sam was up against the wall in the corner of the room, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. The cheerful holiday tunes rang hollowly in her ears, like bad elevator music played at too fast a tempo and too high a volume. She didn't even know why she was watching her family; the only reason she had come downstairs was to get something to eat. They certainly weren't doing anything she wanted to see.

Her brother was messing with some electronic thing, adding to the noise in the room. Grandma Manson, who was supposed to be tending the fire, was half-asleep. Her dad was still on the phone over a deal, her mom was reading _A Christmas Carol_ for the eighth time, and her sisters were still talking about their boyfriends. It was still sickening.

Sam was about to go into the kitchen, get a snack, and lock herself in her room for the night when…

"Samantha, don't you want to sit around the fire for a while?" her mom asked, "It's got to be cold up in your room."

"Let her go back up," her brother piped up, "She's probably doing some creepy psycho-ghost ritual!" Sam turned around and shot a death glare at her brother, and their mother gave him a "be quiet" look.

"Why do you even ask, Mom?" one of her sisters said in a voice sounding a lot like Paulina's, "You know she never does anything for Christmas?" Sam now turned her gaze on her.

"Leave your sister alone," their mom said to the twins, "Sam, I just don't want you locking yourself in your room the entire break."

"Danny's still in town," Sam shrugged, "I was gonna hang out with him."

"What about your family?" her dad finally hung up the phone, "It _is_ Christmas, after all," Sam sighed.

"Dad, do we have to go through this every year?" she asked, annoyed.

"I'm just worried about you. I don't want you going any deeper into that…stuff you look up than you already…"

"Dad, I dress in black and do ghost research for Danny's parents. That's all," Sam couldn't believe he was bringing this up again. She'd told him that a million times already! She was seriously considering writing to Webster's and asking them to put her parents down and synonymous with overprotective.

"You forgot hating Christmas," her brother spoke up again.

"That _does_ seem to be where all this started, Sam," her mother added.

"Oh, what? My not being mindless social clones like them!?" Sam pointed at her sisters, "Oh, yeah! That's a _big_ problem!" she rolled her eyes.

"No, that's not a problem, but don't you thing you do a bit…much in trying to be one of a kind? Ever since sixth grade it's been one thing after another and…"

"Do you have a point you haven't already stressed to death, or can I go get something to eat?" Sam snapped. No one seemed surprised by her rudeness; they were all used to it by now. It was a typical Manson family chat.

"Can't you at least be happy about seeing your family from out of town?" her dad asked.

"The last thing in mind for you people during Christmas is 'family,'" Sam muttered.

"What do you mean by that!?" her mother raised her voice. They'd heard all of Sam's insults before, but whenever she turned personal, the conversations always heated up.

"You all spend December shopping, obsessing over gifts, outdoing the neighbours with lights, and worrying about Dad's business is doing. That places _so_ much emphasis on family," Sam said sarcastically.

"Sweetie, those are just holiday traditions…" her dad said.

"And they've taken over everything else about the holidays since as long as I can remember," Sam cut in dryly. Everyone stared at her in shock; even Grandma Manson had started to wake up. The way she said it, you'd think _they_ were the reason she hated Christmas.

"Is there something you'd like to say to us, Sam?" her mother narrowed her eyes.

"No, nothing," Sam said, a bit too lightly to be believable. Everyone still continued to stare at her, and she actually cracked a smile, though a slight, sneaky one.

"You really wanna know?" she asked, still using the light tone. They all nodded, "Fine, then. You're always telling me whenever I make a decision you don't agree with, 'You used to love doing this!' or 'Come on, you used to talk with us all the time!' Do you remember what I used to be like on Christmas?" the family's faces changed from attentive to confused.

"Uh…of course we do, dear!" her dad said weakly, "You, uh…"

"I liked it," Sam went on, "I got excited over it. I couldn't wait for Christmas, just like everyone else. But here's the catch. I _didn't_ get excited over presents, I _didn't_ get excited over lights, and I _didn't_ get excited over Dad's money. You want to know what I _did_ get excited over? Everyone was always saying how Christmas is _really_ about family and friends and peace on Earth an all that. _That's_ what I got excited over. But year after year I noticed something odd. What was it? Oh, I don't know…maybe it was that no one in my family every stopped to care about that! Dad was either talking on the phone or away on business, Mom and the twins were working on the lights, food, presents, and the rest of that garbage, and when the twerp came around, he whined about presents. Just like the rest of the year, but worse. At least other times during the year, you occasionally made _some_ attempts to be a family. It kept going on, year after year. Then, in sixth grade, it finally hit me," Sam now dropped her light smile and glared at her family.

"Christmas was dead," her tone went dark as well, "It got killed by commercialism years ago, and you all went with the times. So did everyone at school, on the streets, in the stores…everywhere. So I gave up. And I still say the same thing to this day. You want to know why I hate Christmas? _There's your answer!_" the fury in her final words was so horrible it sent a chill down the spine of everyone in the room. And with that, Sam headed up to her room and slammed the door shut, completely forgetting about her snack.

----

Danny had been lying on his bed ever since his fight with his family, not even bothering to look at the clock, but a combination of guilt and boredom forced him to turn his head towards the alarm by his bed.

"6:00" he read. He now looked out the window. It was dark and cloudy, but he knew his way around the city well enough not to get lost. He managed to fly around the streets every day; a walk wouldn't kill him. He didn't know where the idea of going out came from; likely from the desire to let off steam; but he made up his mind on it, got off his bed, and headed downstairs.

Jazz was nowhere to be seen (_'Probably recording our in her memoirs,' _Danny thought.) Their parents were sitting by the fireplace, gloomy expressions on their faces. Danny felt a new force to the tug of guilt in his stomach.

"Um…" he said when he'd reached them. They turned to look at him, "I'm going out."

"Where?" Jack asked quietly.

"The forest. I'll be back by ten," no one spoke for a while. The uncomfortable atmosphere was getting so thick you could cut it with a knife. Danny couldn't stand it when his parents acted this way because of something he did; no one was happy in the house for days afterwards.

"Alright," Maddie finally said, "Put a coat on," she and Jack turned back to the fireplace. Danny wanted to say "thanks," but for come reason could not. With a sigh, he walked over to the closet, pulled out his jacket, overcoat, gloves and scarf, put them on, and headed outside.

----

Sam leaned against her bed, listening to a quiet Danny Elfman CD. Her mind seemed to be filled with a million angry bees, none of them wanting to stop flying against her skull.

Well, she'd done it. She'd told her parents why she hated the holiday season. And she meant every word of it. The first twelve years of her life looking forward to December 25 every year and always seeing everything you thought would happen fall apart would be enough to get anyone in a sour mood, she thought. They were always so keen to notice whenever she was doing something that they didn't consider appropriate or, in her sisters' case, "cool," but completely ignored her disappointment every Christmas. She had been wanting to tell that to them ever since sixth grade, and had no regrets on doing so.

'_Then why do I feel so lousy?'_ she thought. She looked up at the clock. 6:00. There was enough time to sneak out on a walk of the park. She hit the OFF button on the CD player, grabbed the coat and gloves on her bed, and looked downstairs. Her family was watching a TV special, oblivious to everything around them.

"Perfect," Sam whispered to herself, cracking a real smile for the first time in the month. She quietly tiptoed down the stairs, making not the slightest sound as she made her way towards the door. She was just about to open it when…

"You think we really did put Sam through all that?" her mother said out of the blue. Sam almost fell over in shock, but caught herself. Were they showing…_regret?_ For something they'd done to _her_? For a brief instant, she considered heading back to her room. Then…

"You know Samantha," her dad shrugged, "Emotions go all over the place," Sam's glare returned. Silently but defiantly, she turned the doorknob and headed outside.

The walk to Amity Park's park was longer than one might think. Sam managed to get to and from there so fast most of the time because she usually either rode her scooter or got a lift from Danny. The walk from her house to the park bordered on an hour in time. She didn't mind, though; the longer she had away from her family, the better. As she walked her eyes caught all the lights of the Christmas decorations and lawn ornaments. She did her best not to let those agitate her even further. Finally she arrived at the park. She walked down the path until she reached the end of the park, at the edge of a cliff overlooking a small lake, as far away from her house as it was possible to go at night. She stopped at the cliff's edge, breathing in the cold night air. The air in winter always seemed to remind her of mints. She looked down over the lake. It was frozen over, a frosty ice covering all the water. Had the moon been out, it would have been beautiful to see. Now, with the clouds, it was as melancholy as Sam felt. She looked up at the sky for no reason, then back down over the lake.

She didn't know how long she was going to be out here, but she could tell it was going to be a while before she started to cheer up from this.

----

Amity Park Forest was about an hour's walk away from FentonWorks. Danny could have made it there in half that time or less flying, but he didn't mind using his legs. It gave him more time to cool off, and literally cool off. Even with his coat and scarf he could feel the cold night air nipping at his face, and he'd put his hands in his pockets because he could feel the cold through his gloves. He barely took notice of the Christmas decorations, another thing changed from last Christmas. Eventually he reached the forest, walking along the wooden path through the trees. Most of them were dead, but there were a few evergreens around. Every year Jack vowed he would go into the forest, chop down one of these 100-foot tall evergreens, and set it up in the backyard as their Christmas tree. Every year they settled for the cheapest tree he could find, and let the decorations do their job.

Danny laughed lightly to himself at the thought. It was the first good thought of Christmas he'd had in a while, and he liked it. He stopped walking to let it sink in. He took his hands out of his pockets and looked at them. His winter gloves were black and thick, but there was a stain of silver paint on his right thumb. Oh, if just for this one month Fenton and Phantom could separate and he could get on with Christmas!

Danny sighed and drew his eyes away from his gloves, instead looking up to the sky. It seemed to be getting colder, and the breeze seemed a bit stronger. Sighing again, Danny kept going. He could not have known it was not just his emotions making the weather seem colder, that, looming just less than a mile away and coming in fast, was the very blizzard that Lancer had missed the report on, its sights set on Amity Park.


	3. III

The breeze blowing through the streets soon picked up speed, becoming a full wind. The air chilled, and from the clouds came the drifting white flakes, quickly falling to the ground. Looking away from the fireplace and towards the window, Jack caught sight of the spectacle of nature from inside FentonWorks. He smiled.

"Ah, snow," he sighed, "First one of the season!" Maddie looked out the window herself, but did not share Jack's enthusiasm at the sight. She looked worried.

"You think we should call Danny in?" she asked Jack, "I don't know if it's safe to be out in this weather."

"Maddie," Jack laughed, "A walk in the snow never hurt anybody! Besides, being out during the first Christmas snow in the forest could do him good! Let him let off some steam, get back into the season!"

"I wonder what _is_ wrong with him over Christmas?" Maddie wondered out loud.

"Oh, probably the pains of puberty, tough year at school, and all those things," Jack said, "He'll be fine!"

----

Danny had been walking along the wooden path for a few minutes, eventually stopping to sit down on a bench. The wind was picking up speed and snowflakes had started coming down. He watched the snow blow around in the wind and fall to the ground, sticking. It was always calming, watching something as gentle as a snowfall, and Danny smiled lightly at the sight. He was so enamoured with the new-found distraction from everything on his mind he barely noticed how quickly the wind was picking up, how the temperature was dropping to the point where every nerve in his body was starting to pick up a chill even through all his winter clothes, and how much snow had actually fallen on the ground.

----

Sam was still by the cliff's edge, staring down below at the icy body of water beneath her. The wind was blowing around her, pushing her hair out in front of her face and blurring her view of the lake. She was so wrapped up in all that had gone on today she was barely aware of it until it blew a single snowflake onto the tip of her nose. She brushed it off and looked up at the sky. The white flakes were drifting down quickly, blowing all over in the wind. Her arms having been wrapped around her legs all this time, she let them set down on the grass, and found that the snow had already accumulated quite a bit, though since her hands were gloved, it was more from the sound than the feel that she knew. From the wind she could tell that the storm was coming up from behind her, and she turned to look. Though very dark, she could see that the clouds were thick and rolling in thicker. The wind was icy sharp, knocking around her hair and loose coat and chilling her even through all her winter clothes. The amount of snow, the speed at which it fell, and the wind's speed were all picking up, and the temperature was falling. The snowfall seemed to be determined to grow into a fierce snowstorm…much like how Sam was determined to stay as far away from her family as she could that night. She stayed where she was on the cliff, turning back to the lake and letting the storm blow around her.

----

"Snow's really coming down hard now, isn't it?" Jazz commented. She had come downstairs a few minutes ago and immediately gone to the window when she saw the snow falling. It was indeed coming down hard now. Within the short time since it had started falling, the snow had accumulated to almost an inch, with more and more flakes coming down and the wind picking them up and tossing them all over the streets.

"Jack, maybe we should call Danny in," Maddie said again, more worried this time. It was an hour's walk from the forest to the Fenton home in good weather and the snow only seemed to be picking up strength.

"Oh, what's a little snow and wind to a Fenton?" Jack brushed the comment aside.

"Jack, this could be serious," Maddie pointed to the window, and Jack looked out at the storm. She had a point; it _was_ getting awfully strong. Still, Danny was a Fenton…

"If it doesn't calm down in a few minutes I'll call him," Jack said, "Fair enough?" after a moment's hesitation, Maddie nodded. Jazz, who had been watching them, turned back to the window. She wasn't very easy about Danny being out there herself. Even his ghost-powers couldn't control a storm like this…

----

Danny was still in a lazy trance on the bench in the forest, almost completely oblivious to all that was going on around him. The snow had piled up to an inch on the wooden path and forest floor around him, the temperature was growing colder still, and the wind was cold enough to make a person's bones rattle in their skin. Yet Danny just stared into space, a sleepy grin on his face. He came to his senses only when a large bit of snow that had been caught between two tree branches was blown off by the wind and fell onto his face.

"Huh?" he shot up, now alert. He noticed how much Mother Nature had done during his little daze, "Whoa! Better get home before the town turns into a glacier," he stood up, brushed the snow that had collected on his coat off, and headed back down the path. It was not easy walking, however. The wind was flying at him from behind with such force it edged him forward faster than he cared to move, and once or twice he almost lost his footing. The wind also blew at his coat, and to keep himself somewhat warm he had to pull it close to his body. The snowfall made it hard to see, and the path was quickly getting covered completely.

"Maybe I should've started back sooner," Danny muttered to himself. He wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck and kept going.

----

By now, the snow was coming down in such quantities and at such speed it was barely possible to see out the window at all. All the Fentons had gathered around to look out into the night, and even Jack had to admit now that it definitely was _not_ safe to be out in this weather.

"Maybe we should look in on the latest reports on the Fenton Viewscreen," Jack thought aloud. He picked up the remote and turned it on (alright, it was the TV from before…but it was made by Jack, so he used a name for it that began with "Fenton!")

"The winter storm of the decade is here, folks!" the reporter was saying, worry all over his voice, "The same system that caused so much devastation in the Midwest has only picked up strength on its way here, and now Amity Park is caught in it. Already there is more than an inch of snow on the ground and it has become impossible to see outside! The temperature and wind chill are falling drastically! It is not safe to be out in this weather, folks. Get inside immediately. And I hope that your fires are natural, because the winds of this blizzard have knocked down several power lines in their wake," the report continued on. Jack, Maddie and Jazz stared at the screen. The looks on their faces were horrific enough to send a chill down the spine.

----

The Mansons were also staring in disbelief at their screen, the same weather report having interrupted their Christmas special. A line of the counties under winter storm warnings was running across the bottom of their screen.

"You think we should tell Sam about this?" Grandma Manson squawked. That did sound like a good idea; Sam had a habit of sneaking out without permission. Mrs. Manson headed upstairs.

"Sam?" she knocked on her daughter's door; it opened into the room through her touch. The room was empty, Sam's coat and gloves missing. Mrs. Manson put a hand over her mouth to quiet her gasp and looked out the window. The storm had only worsened.

----

Down in Amity Park Park, Sam remained by the cliff, but was finding her mind more and more open to any thoughts of returning home that cared to enter. Almost two inches of snow were piled up around her, her body was covered in the frozen water, and the wind was so strong it had scooted her a bit closer to the cliff at least once. Sam found her entire form shivering from the cold. Even her bones seemed to be knocking around inside her skin. A new gust of wind blew her hair into her mouth, the snow that had fallen on it forcing itself down her throat.

"That's it," she said wearily, standing up and brushing the snow off her, "I'm heading back," she turned around to do so, but the force of facing the wind caught her off-guard. She fell down on her back, and only managed to get up on her knees trying to stand back up again.

"This could be bad," she observed dryly.

----

Walking with his back to the wind, Danny found his situation was not improving. The normal speed of the air around him was bad enough, but the gusts were especially strong. The wind chill and amount of snow around him, which had to be over two inches by now, made it impossible to really be warm. Now another strong gust came up, and Danny felt himself fly off his feet and dive face-first into the snow in front of him.

"That does it," he spat, wiping the white powder off his face. Two blue ghost-rings surrounded his body, flying in different directions. He was now Danny Phantom, and floated up in the air in preparation to take off. It was then his body became aware that it no longer had a scarf, gloves, jacket, or overcoat to block out the worst of the cold. Danny went stiff as a board, throwing his hands around his body and shivering like mad. Now that he was in the air, he was getting forced around by the wind worse than ever. It picked him up and sent him straight for a tree. He phased through it, but as he became tangible again and tried to look back through the snow at the tree, he crashed into another one a few feet ahead. As he slid down to the ground, he changed back to human form. After a bit of searching, he found the path. Immediately after getting back on he threw off his winter clothes. He had an idea.

After a few minutes and going ghost again, Danny Phantom was now wrapped up in Fenton's scarf, gloves (over the labsuit), jacket and coat. It wasn't really warm and it was too risky to fly. But at least in ghost-form Danny could hold himself up a bit better and he had a bit more energy. He was about to start back again when his cell phone went off.

"Dad?" he answered it, checking to see who was calling.

"Danny," his father's voice came through the other line, full of worry, "Son, you'd better head back in as fast as you can. It's the storm of the century out there!" Danny was surprised by how panicked his father sounded. Usually he was too confident for his own good.

"I'm on my way back now," Danny said.

"Well shake a tail feather, son, because it's…" his father's voice cut off, and a single tone took its place.

"Dad?" no answer, "_Dad?_" still no answer. The storm had knocked down the power lines of the city. Almost every electronic device in the city was now dead.


	4. IV

"Danny? Danny!? Are you there, boy!?" Jack yelled into the now dead phone. No answer came.

"Dad, the power's dead," Jazz stated the obvious.

"Not for long!" Jack's voice went from worried to determined, "Maddie, get the Fenton Emergency Generator running. I'm getting' the RV ready and goin' out to fetch our boy!"

"Jack, the roads are…" Jack had already ran out of the room, "…Never mind. Jazz, keep the fire going while I get the generator ready. I knew having a real fireplace would end up better than a gas one," and with that, Maddie headed down to the lab. Jazz walked over to the fireplace and threw on a few more logs, as the flame was starting to fade away. She had a feeling that, no matter how much firewood they put in there, she was going to feel cold tonight.

----

Jack pulled on his leather jacket and hat with earflaps before charging into the garage, almost breaking the door off his hinges. He also almost ripped off the door of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle trying to climb in the car.

"I'm comin', Danny!" he shouted, shoving the keys into the ignition. Jack just remembered he hadn't opened the garage door and barely did so in time before the RV pulled out into the streets. The roads were filled with three inches of snow and increasing, and the winds were strong enough to rock around even the Fenton family's ghost-hunting vehicles. It was a small miracle Jack managed to get out off the driveway and into the street at all. Undaunted, Jack shifted gears and, for a brief moment, it looked as though he would be on his way. But the roads were slick and the snow made it almost impossible to see. Jack's over-determination and impatience wasn't helping things either. Soon Jack felt himself fly forward in his seat, the airbag shove up in his face, and the entire van shake. He'd crashed right into a lightpole, knocking it into the street.

"Darn these things!" Jack muttered into the airbag. More slowly than he had been coming out, Jack got the RV back into the garage.

----

Jazz sat by the fire, waiting to see if her mom could actually get the power back on in the house. She stared at the dancing flames, not really seeing what her eye was looking at. An image of Danny frozen stiff as board was stuck in her mind, and she could only get it out and look away from the fire when Jack came running into the room, tossing off his hat and coat.

"Hope your mother's able to get the Fenton Emergency Generator running," he puffed, "No way I'll be able to get Danny in this weather using the RV," just then, the doorbell rang. Hope spreading all through their bodies, Jack and Jazz ran to get it. It wasn't Danny, but the figure in their doorway looked as cold and miserable as Jazz had been imagining Danny. It was Mr. Lancer, still wearing his clothes from school that day and bluer than his normal shirt.

"A-A-Any c-chance I c-c-could come i-i-i-in?" he shivered, and he began falling into the house. Jack caught him and helped him over to a chair. He and Jazz both were disappointed he wasn't Danny coming back, but they couldn't let him stay out there.

"What happened, Mr. Lancer?" Jazz asked.

"I was picking up some food and on my way home when the storm started up. I lost control, sped down this street, and my car ran into a fallen lightpole in the middle of the road," he sneezed. Behind Lancer's back, Jack grinned nervously.

"Where's Danny?" Lancer sniffed. The dark, worried looks spread back over everyone's face.

"He's…out," Jack said.

"In this weather!?" Lancer jumped out of his chair and whirled around to face Jack, sneezing again.

"He went out before the storm hit," Jazz explained, "He was on his way back when we called him and then…the power went dead."

"Maddie's working on the Fenton Emergency Generator as we speak," Jack said, some hope coming into his voice, "If the house can get powered I can employ a little invention I prepared for just such an occasion! And Danny's resourceful. He's probably out of the forest already!"

----

Danny had just barely gotten far enough so that the bench he had been sitting on was out of sight. Even in his ghost form, walking with his back to the wind was almost impossible to accomplish without falling over again. It was growing harder and harder to see from all the snowfall, and the snow kept piling up in front of him. He hadn't worn any boots or snow pants; there had been no snow when he went out and he hadn't seen this coming. The snow was forced up his jeans and against his legs as he walked, and as it melted against his body it dripped down into his shoes, soaking his feet and freezing them along with everything else. It was times like this he had as much skill and control with his powers as Vlad did; he'd be able to stay intangible long enough to fly home. Now his scarf was coming loose, flapping around in his face. He stopped to grab at it, but a squirrel from the forest jumped off a nearby branch onto his shoulder, grabbed at the scarf, and ran off with it.

"Hey!" Danny shouted, "Come back here with that!" the squirrel ran off the plank and into the woods. For some reason, all logic, reason, sense, and need to get inside left Danny, and he went running after the little animal. Despite all the snow and wind, Danny was actually able to run after the squirrel pretty quickly. He soon found himself by a large tree which had a huge section of its trunk missing, high and deep enough for someone to sit in. It was facing away from the wind and snow, and there was actually still dirt visible around it. The squirrel was gone, but Danny's scarf was lying on the dirt. Danny just stared with his mouth half-open.

"Led to shelter by a squirrel," he looked up at the tree, trying to find the little creature. Something about this felt very out of the ordinary, like some other power was at work here. He quickly shrugged the feeling off.

"It's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me," he said to himself. He picked up his scarf and sat down inside the trunk of the tree. It was still plenty cold, but the wind and snow were gone and he had a chance to relax a bit before continuing on.

----

Sam's dad paced up and down the length of the room. No one knew where Sam was or when she had left. This was always a minor crisis; they never knew what she might be up to alone; but the severity of this particular situation was unlike anything they'd dealt with in a good long while. Now the power was out, taking their gas fireplace with it. Everyone had gotten out warm clothes and was sitting down (except Mr. Manson) all shivering with cold and fear and trying to think of something. They had to find Sam! They stayed this way for quite some time (with all the clocks dead and no one having a watch, it was impossible to know for just how long) when an idea made its way into the twins's heads.

"Use our cell phones to call hers," they said together out of the blue. Everyone looked as though they had been hit with something heavy; it had taken them _this_ long to think of something that simple?

"Give me the cell phone," their mother said. One of the twins handed one to her. She dialled Sam's number and put the phone to her ear. She could hear the ringing tone on the phone…and an actual ring coming from upstairs. Mr. Manson ran up to see where it was coming from. He soon came back downstairs, looking even colder than before. Sam's cell phone was in his hand, ringing.

----

Sam held her coat tight around her body, pulling the top up to partially block her face from the wind. Everything was blowing right at her, and she'd fallen over twice already. She had a long-sleeve T-shirt and black pants under her coat in place of her usual attire, but she was still freezing half to death. The snow was also went into her socks and melted down on her feet as she walked. She had to take very small steps with several seconds in between to keep from falling over again, which, even with this precaution, was becoming much harder to do. She had somehow managed to get out of the park and back into Amity, but it was a long way from home. She was in the "old market," as it was called; the oldest, poorest part of town one had to pass through to get to the park. It was a small piece of the city, but a depressive, gloomy one. Amazingly, it wasn't known for crime or violence or anything like that.

Sam walked down one street. Half a foot of snow had accumulated in the short time since the storm started. She slowed her progress down even more as an especially hard gust of wind flew out at her. She felt herself shift back in the snow. The wind kept up at this strong gust. Rather than fall on her back again, Sam dropped to her knees and curled up in a ball.

'_Well this is a lovely evening,'_ she thought to herself. Even in her head, the words were ringing like sarcasm. She was shivering worse than ever and her breaths were becoming short, fast, and unhelpful. She honestly felt like she was going to die. It was the only thing she could think of. She was doomed.

"Need some help?" over the howling winds and with her head so low, Sam barely heard the words, but they got through to her mind, and were repeated, louder, "Do you need any help there?" she looked up. A shabby-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard and battered, dirty winter clothes that looked as though they'd been thrown out years ago stood in front of her, a concerned look on his face. He was almost as dirty as his clothes, but there was an air of warmth that came out from him. Sam straightened herself out a bit more.

"Yeah, kinda," she called back.

"Well come on inside," he motioned over to an alleyway, "You can wait out the storm," he started back. Desperate to get out of the cold, Sam got up and followed after as fast as she could.

"Inside" turned out to be the alley itself. Three other people were in it already, tending to a small fire fuelled by paper. One with long blond hair and a beard sat up against the wall, a guitar in his lap. There was some canned food and a can opener near him and a few opened, empty cans off in a corner. Some old quilts and blankets were stacked up by the cans. It was still cold, but the fire helped and it was sheltered from the wind and snow. The man who had found Sam headed in, and Sam herself followed quickly, breathing heavily and still shivering.

"You look colder than ice," one of them, a short man with five o' clock shadow said, "How long have you been out here?"

"Over an hour," Sam gasped. The man who had found her grabbed a blanket off the stack and wrapped it around her.

"Well, it's not that much warmer in here, but at least there's no wind," he said, "I'm Greg. This is Bob," he pointed to the short man, "Jim," he pointed to a man leaning against the wall who looked a bit like Hayden Christensen, "and Joe," he pointed to the man with the car. They all nodded when their names were called.

"I'm Sam," Sam said, smiling slightly.

"Well, glad to know you, Sam," Greg shook her hand, "You hungry?" Sam felt her stomach growl. She never _did_ get her snack before heading out. She nodded.

"Well, we've got…" Joe set his guitar aside and looked at the cans, "Evaporated milk, pumpkin, beans, spaghetti-Os, peas, soup, corned beef and…that's about it," he looked up. Sam shrugged. She really didn't care so long as it was something…and not meat.

"Corned beef alright? We've got the most of that," she shook her head, "Spaghetti-Os?"

"No little hot dog bits or anything in it?" she asked.

"Vegetarian, huh?" she nodded, "Nope, just the noodles and tomato sauce."

"Fine."

"Spaghetti-Os it is then," he grabbed for the can opener and a frying pan near the fire. Within a few minutes, Sam was scraping the food into her mouth with her hands, not the slightest thought of manners in her mind.

"You sure were hungry," Bob noted. Sam nodded.

"You guys live here?" she asked through bites at the food.

"Nah," Greg said, "This is more of a clubhouse. We were here when the storm hit and decided to wait it out. We were saving this food for Christmas," he nodded to the cans. Sam stopped eating there, remembering why she was out to begin with. All four of the men noticed.

"Holiday blues, huh?" Greg said sympathetically.

"For three years," Sam mumbled.

"Magic went out, huh?" Jim asked. Sam gave no answer, but it was easy to guess.

"It happens," Greg shrugged, leaning against the wall. Then, he suddenly laughed, "Remember that one Christmas a few years ago? We got that one goose, but somehow a firecracker got caught in some of the paper, and the whole thing went flying all over the place," all four of them cracked up at the memory. Even at the time, it had been funny.

"We were chasing after the pieces," Greg laughed, now turning to Sam to explain the situation, "and grabbing at the paper and running all over the place," he shook his head, wiping away a tear, "We just gave up, grabbed something at the Nasty Burger, came back here and played dominoes all day," Bob brought up another Christmas, one where, somehow, Joe's hand got caught inside the turkey and they had to destroy it to get it out, eventually playing a made-up game with the bones. Sam just listened and watched, feeling something she hadn't felt in years. All these Christmas stories, the atmosphere around this alley, the fond memories of the four men…these were all catastrophes! But the light way they had taken them, the ends of the stories, how they were laughing about them now…it felt so…_warm_. And not just any kind of warm; there was some sort of unexplainable magic added in. It felt like the way she thought Christmas was supposed to be before…before she gave up. Before she concluded it was impossible for anything to be like this. Before that defining moment in sixth grade when she had lost all connection with the holiday season.

Sam could well remember before then, thinking this was what was supposed to happen at Christmas. The closest she ever came to it was hearing about Danny and Tucker's Christmases when they went out together afterwards. Yet sitting here, in the presence of these men, she was beginning for the first time in years to start to feel a bit of regret about her choice to hate the holidays.

----

Danny was half-asleep, leaning up against the tree trunk. Snow and wind were piling up all around him, but he was safe from both where he was. He was still shivering a bit from the cold and his breathing was a bit raspy, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. With a yawn, he made a half-effort to open his eyes and look out into the weather clearly. All of a sudden, a flood of memories seemed to break through a dam inside his mind, filling up his head and pulling him back several years…

----

The last few years in Amity Park had seen dry holiday seasons, but now, finally, they were having a white Christmas. The snow was coming down heavy and some roads had been closed off, but there was no wind. Five-year old Danny Fenton was now out in the streets, dressed warmly and ready for five fun-filled hours before the Fenton family Christmas dinner. As was Fenton tradition, gifts were saved for after dinner rather than in the morning. Despite how much the suspense was killing him, Danny had kept himself from trying to peak at any Christmas presents this year. He was now building up a snow fort. His dad had told him that, when there was a white Christmas, it was tradition to have an all-out boys vs. girls snowball war, and that this year the guys were bound and determined to get back for their humiliating defeat last time. He stepped back to take a look at his work so far.

"Too small," he concluded, and went back to work. It was true; it wasn't high enough or long enough to protect and hold the entire family.

"Danny!" Jack jumped outside, "How's the fort coming along?"

"Still too small, Dad," Danny said, not looking up from his work. Jack looked it over.

"Well you're doing a fine job building it up!" Jack smiled, patting Danny's shoulder, "That snowball war is ours! And, eh…" he dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned up real close to Danny, "I've got a bit of a secret weapon," he winked.

"What?" Danny whispered back.

"I modified the Fenton Ectoplasm Ray to be the Fenton Snow Ray," Jack slipped it out of his coat as if it were vital to national security and spies were all around them. It looked like a ray gun, because it was one. One that started with "Fenton!"

"I, uh, think your mother and Jazz are busy tryin' to put out another batch of cookies," Jack went on, "You wanna test it out?" Danny wasn't sure that was the best idea. His dad's inventions never seemed to work if they were being tested.

"Uh…" he started.

"Alright then, we'll do it!" Jack jumped up, firing off the ray gun. A jet of icy snow in ray form shot out into the street. It bounced off the window of the house across the street, flew up and off the front car window, shot off some ice on the road, and crashed into a lightpole, knocking it into the street. (Ironically, though Danny couldn't have known while recalling the scene, it was in the same spot as the lightpole Jack had knocked over that very night with the RV.) Jack and Danny stared at the sight in shock, completely silent.

"Think fast," Jack finally said, tossing the ray gun to Danny and running inside. Danny caught it and continued to stare at the lightpole, confused.

----

Danny found himself cracking up at the memory. The electricity company had come by later and towed the pole away, but no one ever figured out what had happened to it. Danny had finished the fort and in the snowball war Jack's ray actually did work, securing a male victory. Grandma Fenton had provided most of the food, which was delicious, and Danny had gotten some neat astronomy-related models and books. The kind of snow they'd had that year was the kind that made Christmas…well, Christmas. And for once, no negative thought, no ghost-related depression, no guilty feeling spoiled his good mood. He now looked out into the woods again. The snow had gone up to almost a foot and the wind was howling worse than ever.

"Whoa," he noticed, still a bit distracted from his new-found happy mood, "Time to head back," maybe that wasn't the best idea, but Danny looked at it this way; the storm was likely to keep getting worse, and he wanted to start back again before it was completely impossible to move. Besides, he _did_ say he would be back by ten. Moving out of his little shelter and brushing the dirt off the back of his coat, he stepped back out into the storm, almost flew over, caught himself, and headed on.

----

Sam found herself joining in at laughing over the past Christmases of Greg, Bob, Jim, and Joe. Jim had just talked about one time when a dog had stolen their lamb and they were chasing after it for hours before deciding to pick up some salmon and call it a night. These four seemed to have the most unlucky _and_ luckiest Christmas Days in the world.

"It was good salmon," Jim wiped away a tear, "No offence," he added to Sam.

"It's fine," she laughed. She found herself not really caring about her vegetarian views while listening to these four.

"Well, I've run out of Christmas stories," Greg said, still chuckling. The others agreed, "Joe, you want to play anything?"

"Sure," the long-haired man reached for his guitar, "What'll it be?"

"Anything," Greg shrugged.

"Alrighty then…" Joe thought, "I've got something," he tuned up his guitar and started to play…

_God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen_

_Let nothing you dismay_

_Remember Christ our Saviour_

_Was born on Christmas Day_

_To save us all from Satan's power _

_When we were gone astray _

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy

From God our Heavenly Father

_The Blessed angel came_

_And unto certain shepherds_

_Brought tidings of the same_

_How that in Bethlehem was born_

_The Son of God by name_

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy

"Fear not," said the angel,

_"Let nothing you affright_

_"This day is born a Saviour_

_"Of the pure virgin bright_

"_To free all those who trust in him_

_"From Satan's power and might"_

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy

_Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy_

_And when they came to Bethlehem _

_Where our dear Saviour lay_

_They found him in a manger_

_Where oxen feed on hay_

_His mother Mary kneeled down_

_And to the Lord did pray_

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy

_Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy_

_God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen_

_Let nothing you dismay_

_Remember Christ our Saviour_

_Was born on Christmas Day…_

"All right!" the other three men started clapping, and Sam found herself doing the same. With all the other commercial aspects around her all the time and modern pop song renditions filling the stations, she never did realise how nice these traditional carols sounded.

"Want another one?" Joe asked. Everyone quickly agreed that they did, "Alright then," he prepared to start playing, but everyone noticed that it had gotten even colder. The snow had been piling up so much that a bit of especially strong wind caused some of it to fall into the alleyway, falling onto the fire.

"Oh, dang it!" Bob moaned.

"You still got those matches?" Greg asked, kicking the snow off the fire.

"Yeah. We don't have that much paper left, though," Bob pulled out a few crumpled scraps from his pocket.

"We'll manage," the four men gathered near Bob, trying to get another fire going. Sam stayed where she was, the song still sinking in. She was feeling a bit of…_guilt_. Guilt for letting all the commercialism get to her all these years, guilt for being so hasty in her decision in sixth grade…even guilt for some of her rage at her family. Not for fighting with them, not for loathing their commercial look on the season, not for finding them overprotective, but for some of her unforgiving, unsettled fury she'd let out at them. And the "protective" part of "overprotective" stood out the most in her mind.

She still didn't want to see her family tonight. She didn't want to apologise. But she did want to talk with someone. Someone who knew about all her problems already. Someone with some of the same problems with the season this year…

'_Danny,'_ she made up her mind. She set the blanket back on the pile and turned to leave.

"Where do you think you're going?" she heard Greg ask.

"Oh…I just…I kinda need to talk with someone. A friend," she didn't turn around.

"Does he live far from here?"

"I can get there," her decision defied all her usual reasoning and logic. With the way the storm had continued to pick up steam, it was almost suicide to go out in it. But she really felt like she needed to talk with Danny. Greg didn't answer for a while. Finally…

"Take the blanket with you," Sam reached for it and wrapped it around herself.

"Thanks," she said, and started to walk out.

"Merry Christmas," all four men called. Sam stopped for a moment. She turned around.

"…Merry Christmas," she nodded and smiled. Then she stumbled out into the streets, where the snow was approaching two feet, and kept on going, taking the same slow steps as before and feeling a bit warmer, both inside and out, than she had when she had left home.


	5. V

The lights flickered for a moment, then sprang to life with a slight electrical hum. FentonWorks had power once more.

"Generator's working, dear!" Maddie called up from the basement, "But the power cells are pretty old. I'll have to keep replacing them every few minutes to keep it running!"

"Darn it!" Jack slammed his fist together, "I knew I should've replaced those things! Now only one of us can go out and get Danny in the…" Jazz's cell phone went off. She checked to see who it was.

"It's Sam's parents," she said before answering it, "Hello?"

"Jasmine?" Mrs. Manson's panicked, shaking voice came through the other end.

"Hi, Mrs. Manson," Jazz said, a bit confused, "How'd you get my number?"

"Sam has it," she replied. That made sense, "Is Samantha over there?"

"No, why?"

"Well…we had a bit of a fight, and her room's empty, and…" Jazz could almost feel Mrs. Manson's shaking, "…we thought she might have gone over there to talk with Danny."

"No, she hasn't come over here. Danny's out too. Did you try Tucker's?"

"Yes. They went out of town," Mrs. Manson's voice continued to shake with worry, and Jazz found her own breathing becoming more panicked. She was worried, for Danny and now for Sam. Tucker's house was closer to the forest than FentonWorks. Had he been home, Danny might have been able to take shelter there. Now there was nowhere for him to go but home, and he was still an hour away. Jazz felt herself gulp and shiver, though she did neither consciously.

"If she comes by well let you know, Mrs. Manson," she managed to stutter into the phone.

"Oh, thank you, Jasmine," Mrs. Manson seemed like she was starting to cry from fear. She quickly hung up the phone, and Jazz flipped hers shut.

"Who was that?" Jack asked.

"Sam's not at her house," Jazz said after taking in a deep breath, "The Mansons were wondering if she was over here."

"She might have met up with Danny…" something seemed to snap in Jack's mind, "Hey, why didn't we call Danny on your cell phone when the power went out?" Jazz looked like she'd just seen something completely unbelievable and was trying to make up her mind on whether to believe it or not. Why _didn't_ they think of that?

----

Danny was now taking in a deep breath with every step he took. The wind and snow were worse than ever and the temperature had to be below freezing by this point, but having gotten that chance to rest and being in his ghost form, he had made more progress than he thought. He could actually see part of town up ahead of them.

"Sweet!" he said to himself, "Looks like I'll make it back by…" his cell phone went off again. He answered it, "Hello?"

"Danny?" it was his dad again, still sounding worried, "Are you alright, son?"

"Yeah," Danny said, and this time he meant it, "I'm about out of the forest. I should be back before ten."

"Is Samantha with you?" these words took Danny by greater surprise than they should have.

"No, why?"

"Her parents called over. Seems she went out and they can't find her. We thought she might have gone after you."

"Sam's out in this weather!?" Danny shouted. Any thoughts of getting home on time, his own situation, and just exactly how bad the storm was seemed to shoot out of his mind like a rocket; he now knew his best friend was out in this storm, and that was all that mattered.

Danny waited for his father's response, but none came.

"Dad?" still no answer, "Dad!" nothing. The cell phone lines were going dead now too. The storm had come up fast, catching people off-guard with no one ready. But now that time had passed, people in and out of town who were safe indoors were getting worried. They were making calls to their loved ones, making sure they were all right. The signals were getting overloaded.

Danny didn't know about any of that as he flipped his cell phone shut. Nor did he really care. He knew Sam was out here, and he didn't like it. For the first time since he got out from under the tree he really noticed how much the temperature dropped. How much the wind was nipping at every nerve ending in his body. How it was so could he could make out every little twist and turn that his breath made as it left his body. None of these, however, made him want to head inside quicker. If he could feel the elements this much, than Sam had to be as bad off as he was. He didn't know if she'd been out as long as he had, if she had better winter clothing, or if she had found shelter or not, but he didn't care. What he did care about was making sure she was all right. He brought himself out of his fear and turned his eyes back on to the sight of Amity Park in front of him. There was no way he'd find her by walking without killing himself. But if he tried flying…

"Well…" he gulped. He had made up his mind, "Here goes nothing," he jumped up into the air, braced himself for the shot of wind on his back, and took off. He didn't go intangible; if he had he would have collapsed within a few minutes from exhaustion; but instead put every ounce of strength in his body into keeping himself airborne and resisting the winds enough to keep from being blown around like a dead leaf, but also get a bit of a lift.

It wasn't easy. His body was rocking around like an aeroplane passing through a strong air pocket. His coat was flying open behind him, letting snow fall onto his ghost-suit and melt down through the fabric and onto his skin, freezing his body worse than ever. But he was doing better than he thought he would. He was soon out of the forest and flying above the streets of Amity. The snow had already climbed up above people's porches and showed no signs of letting up. The birds-eye view of the storm only encouraged Danny to try and fly harder.

----

"Danny?" Jack yelled into the phone, "Danny!? _Danny!?_ What's wrong with this stupid thing!?" he began shaking Jazz's cell phone furiously.

"Circuits are probably overloaded," Lancer sniffed, "Now that the storm's settled in, the signal's filled with people calling up friends and family," he sneezed.

"Darn!" Jack grunted. As he did so, he closed his fist on Jazz's cell phone, crushing it. He then noticed his daughter's angry glare. Smiling nervously, he hid the wreckage behind his back.

"I hope Samantha's alright out in this weather," he said to change the subject.

----

Sam was doing better out in the elements after having eaten and lightened up a bit, but fighting against the wind and snow, which were still gaining more strength, was no easy task. She'd picked up the pace with her steps, moving faster than before, and angulating her body so that she could move against the wind better. The blanket didn't completely block out the cold, but it helped. But that didn't change the conditions that she was out in. She could still feel herself shivering and it was damn near impossible to see. Now another particularly strong gust of wind shot out at her. She shifted herself into another position, trying to stay upright, but the wind seemed to split, coming at her at both sides. She teetered on one foot for a moment until another gust knocked her sideways into the snow. She slowly sat up, spitting snow out of her mouth.

"Now would be a real good time to have some Fenton gadget that could melt all this," she commented. She slowly stood up, almost choking on a large bit of snow that flew into her throat.

----

Danny's face was drawn tight into a scowl of frustration. After his easier-than-expected take-off, keeping himself airborne was proving extremely difficult. Not that he'd been completely off since then. He was sure he'd made it past Tucker's house and was coming up on FentonWorks, though until he found Sam, he wasn't planning on heading inside. But the wind and snow were still picking up, and the wind's angle was slanting and turning more and more, causing Danny to rock around a lot more than before. Though coming up from behind him, the snow was also blowing up into his face, making it hard to see. Now a strong gust of wind caught him from behind, strong enough to make him lose control and fly right at a building. He quickly phased through it, but upon coming out, another air current picked him up and threw him at yet another building. Danny grabbed onto the railing on the fire escape and flipped onto the roof, landing perfectly.

"All right!" he congratulated himself, "Maybe I'm getting better at this after all!" yet another strong current knocked him off the roof and into a large snowdrift. Danny scrambled to get his head out, coughing up snow and water from what had melted in his mouth.

"Then again…" he spat. As he sat up he noticed a change in the winds. It was plenty strong at its regular flow, but those gusts that had caught him off-guard hadn't been terribly frequent. Now they seemed to be settling for the speed of those gusts as their usual tempo. The wind chill and overall temperature seemed to be dropping. A shot of icy air stronger than anything that had come before that night lashed out at the city, and it did not let up. The snow was falling faster and getting heavier, so that even at this time during a winter's evening (what time it really was Danny did not know) everything looked almost completely white. Danny had to raise his coat up above his head to shield himself from the elements. Everything was howling around him, snowdrifts breaking apart and blowing up into newer, higher ones. The snow was coming down so hard he could feel it pelting at his coat and soaking into what little of his hair was still exposed. Even in his crouched position the wind was shifting him over, deeper into the snowdrift.

----

The sudden worsening of every element of the storm had affected the other side of town too. Sam had managed to get up from her last fall and get down a few more streets, but was caught completely off-guard by the sudden increase in the storm's power. She was immediately knocked off her feet, almost flying out of her shoes, and fell into the snow behind her. Immediately the snow that was falling from the clouds began to cover her, the flakes melting as they hit her body and freezing her worse than ever. Sam was shivering so badly it appeared as though she was having a fit. It was getting too much. Sam wrapper herself in the blanket and curled up into a ball in the middle of the snow-drenched streets in the worst part of the storm.

"This is fun," she muttered to herself darkly. Even sitting the way she was, Sam was still shaking from the cold. She couldn't _believe _she'd been so stupid when she left that alley! Talking with Danny could wait! He'd still be there when the storm was over, and she had had a place to wait it out!

For a few brief moments after these thoughts passed through her mind, Sam did not feel like blaming herself. She blamed anyone else she could think of; her family, the four men, even Danny. But she couldn't do that for long. She was the one stupid enough to step out into a blizzard when her emotions got to her. It wasn't the first time her own problems or the need for a sudden decision clouded her judgement; the fake-out make-out immediately came to mind. But this time was different. There was a real possibility now that she was going to die. She closed her eyes and kept herself in that curled ball. The snow was heavy enough for her to feel it falling through the blanket.

----

Danny dug himself out of the snowdrift entirely, and immediately was blown sideways into the snow-filled streets. The wind was showing no mercy in letting anything move around. Danny didn't care, though. He had his goals set. He jumped up into the air again, but lost control even before he had time to gain it. He was blowing around like a little piece of paper, having to try and phase through everything from lightpoles to overturned mailboxes. Eventually his eye missed something, and his shoulder smacked hard against the side of a house, sending him spiralling to the ground face-first. He dug himself out, tried to get up, failed, and rolled over, gripping his shoulder in pain with his teeth clenched tight.

Things were looking hopeless. He couldn't fly, his shoulder felt like it had been ripped out of its socket, the snow was piling up on top of him, and the storm only seemed to be getting worse. Ice seemed to be forming in a small, crackling layer over his body from the melted snow, as though an extremely cold and unpleasant sugar glaze had been put over him. Danny could feel his teeth chattering and his breath getting faded and shallow.

For once in his life, Danny welcomed the coming of a ghost. Any ghost. Something to get his attention. Something to wake him up, something for him to concentrate on, something to keep him from just lying there until he froze over, something to get him looking for Sam again. He had no sooner finished praying for this when he turned over and looked up. Right from Charles Dickens's classic tale, the tall, black-cloaked figure of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come stood before him, pointing east and looking down at him.

Danny's first reaction was one of a mild awe, seeing the apparition without taking it in. Then, as the image registered in his mind, he jumped back in shock, his shoulder feeling healed. As he jumped he stumbled over his own feet, falling into the snow again. When he pulled himself out, the spirit was gone. Danny did a double take, looking around where the being had stood; he'd seen it. It _had_ to have been there…wasn't it?

"OK…" Danny said to himself, his heart still racing, "Either I'm losing it, or there's some kind of divine intervention going on here," he looked toward where he thought the spirit had been pointing. It seemed crazy to trust something like that. Still, he had nothing to lose…

"What the heck," he muttered and sighed together. The image of Sam frozen as a corpse passed through his mind. With a strange, steely determination he hardly ever felt, Danny moved on.

----

Sam had sat up on her knees, still covered by the blanket. She had managed to bring herself back to sense enough to avoid lying there until she died, but she still didn't know how she planned on staying alive long enough to get to FentonWorks. She tried concentrating on Danny, sharing her problems with him and getting some help, hoping to get enough motivation to stand up and get her legs moving. It worked. She rose up and tried heading on, and amazingly, she did not feel any wind or snow hitting her in the face and knocking her back. In fact, the only thing she felt on her face was cold. It was almost as if the wind had turned from hitting her in the fact to pushing her along from behind. This defied all logic, all science, all reasoning, all sense, and Sam found that she didn't really notice nor care. She just kept walking.

How long she walked, she didn't know. She could feel her legs getting worn out, and the feeling of wind and snow on her face began to come back. But she kept going. And eventually, after who-knows how long, she saw another figure walking at her from the other end of the street. She couldn't make out who it was for a while. Then, as they drew closer, she could make out the snow-white hair. The ghostly green eyes. The labsuit underneath the coat and jacket.

"Danny?" she whispered in disbelief. Her shock and relief was so great she tried moving forward more quickly and stumbled along. Danny jumped over and caught her. All around them the patterns of the storm were becoming fierce, unforgiving, and making sense again.


	6. VI

"Sam!" Danny shouted over the roar of the wind, "What the heck are you doing out here!?"

"I went for a walk before the storm hit," she yelled back, smiling slightly, "What's your excuse!?"

"Same," they both laughed lightly and looked around. Now that the storm seemed to be heading back to its highest power, everything was again blurred into white. Both got knocked to the ground, the storm blowing over and around them. As if by isntinct, Danny raised up an ectoplasmic barrier. The cold was still there, but the snow and wind blew harmlessly outside the shield. Danny suddenly realised how easy that solution was.

"If I weren't a C student I would have thought of that in the first place," he said. Sam laughed, brushing the snow out of her hair. Danny now took notice of the blanket that was around her.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked, nodding to it.

"Long story," Sam sighed.

"We've got plenty of time," Danny nodded outside the barrier. Sam nodded, but didn't start explaining. Wanting to talk with Danny was the whole reason she'd left shelter in the first place, but right now, he seemed so happy; or, at least as one can be when stuck outside in the winter storm of the century. She didn't want to kill the somewhat content mood with her problems. But Danny kept staring at her attentively, ready to listen. Finally, Sam sighed again, and started…

----

"I'm set!" Jack walked out, his ear-flapped hat and leather jacket back on. He had no Fenton devices with him, but stood with a determined expression, any air of unintentional stupidity gone from him. No one knew what he was "set" for, but Jazz was sure they were about to find out.

"Maddie, you sure you can't come?" he shouted down into the basement.

"I told you, dear," she called back up, "I have to watch the power cells!" Jack's shoulders slumped slightly. His eyes now darted over to Lancer's chair.

"Lancer!" he shouted, "Got the feeling back in your legs enough to head out on a rescue mission?" Lancer sniffed, "Perfect! Meet me on the roof!" he ran upstairs. Lancer and Jazz looked at each other, confused. Finally Lancer shrugged, sneezed, and followed. Jazz watched him run off, and looked outside. It was nearly pure white outside the window, and the wind was almost visible the way it was howling around.

"Whatever you're up to, Dad…" she muttered, more to herself than to her long-gone father, "…It better be something to help find Danny."

----

Lancer found the ladder that led up to the trap-door leading out to the roof pulled down once he got upstairs. The second he had titled the door less than inch up into the outside, the wind blew it open with a force so great it shook the roof inside the house. Lancer poked his head out. Even under the gigantic Fenton Satellite, his hat nearly blew off, and he had to put a hand to his head to keep it on.

"War of the Worlds, it's bad out here!" he shouted.

"Yep," Jack's voice came from beside him. He was trying to pull down a ladder that led up into the satellite, "And my son, your student's out in it!"

"What in the name of T.H. Wells was Danny thinking when he went out in this!?" Lancer asked, pulling himself out onto the roof.

"Oh, he's been a bit under the weather lately, we had a fight about it, he headed out to let off steam. Like Jasmine said, it was before the storm hit. But now, what matters is finding him!" Jack was so dramatic and forceful with his words that he didn't pay attention to the ladder. He yanked on it, and it clanged down right on his head. After feeling dazed a bit, Jack shook his head, cleared it off, and headed up the ladder, Lancer close behind.

Inside the Fenton Satellite, it was as if they were inside a star cruiser. There were all sorts of computers, monitors, armaments, scanners…all designed to track ghosts. Jack took no notice of them. Instead, he headed over to a small circular door that looked like the entrance to a submarine dock. He spun the round wheel on the front around and the door clicked open. He threw it open so hard that it sent a loud clang throughout the entire satellite and slid down the tube behind it. Not knowing what else to do, Lancer followed. He landed behind Jack in what appeared to be a two-man space pod.

"Mr. Lancer," Jack said, a bit more dramatically than needed, "Welcome to the Fenton Pods! Designed for emergency escape in the event of a ghost attack blocking off all other exits, these babies have enough power to get us from here to Taiwan! But with more precise coordinates, we'll be able to stay in Amity! Now, Danny was in the forest, so a quick map scan here…" he messed with the computer at the front of the pod, "…I have it! Get ready, Lancer! This thing's takeoff should be tense!" Lancer gulped as the opening through which they had entered the pod closed. He hated flying.

"How often do you test this thing?" he asked nervously.

"Uh…never," Jack said as he hit ENGAGE, "Never had to use 'em, so never felt the need!"

"What!?" but it was too late to turn back now. The pod was rocking, the lights signalling that launch was approaching were flashing, and Jack wore a maniac grin that only came when he was using a Fenton gadget.

"Casino Royale!" Lancer shouted. The launch sequence engaged, the pod shot out of the satellite like a speeding bullet, the computer beeping like mad to turn them around and heading in the right direction. But they'd no sooner gotten out over the streets when the pod's rockets seemed to falter, spitting out sparks and smoke. They hovered in the air for a moment. Then, like a rock, they fell to the ground, landing softly in the many feet of snow lining the streets. The door to the pod hissed open.

"Darn these rocket boosters!" Jack shouted, jumping out; Lancer seemed frozen in shock, gripping the seat like his life depended on it.

"Stupid things," Jack mutterd, waving at the smoking jets, "A bit of cold and they…oh, wait a minute!" he moaned, "This is the prototype we also never tested! Must've accidentally installed it in with the good ones. Come on, Lancer!" he shouted into the pod, "To the _real_ Fenton Pods! We're comin', Danny!" Jack charged back towards the house. Lancer stayed where he was for a moment. Then, as the cold brought him out of his shock, he climbed out and followed.

----

"…So I started feeling bad about some of the stuff I said to my parents," Sam was just about done explaining her evening, "Not that I'm conforming or anything, just…I kind of felt bad. I didn't want to talk to them, so I started for FentonWorks and…" she shrugged, "we ran into each other. Now I just…I dunno. I still hate the commercialism, but maybe I was wrong about the real thing behind Christmas being dead," Danny nodded, a bit of a shocked look on his face. He knew about Sam's dislike for Christmas; he'd had to put up with it since sixth grade. And he knew only too well how stubborn she was. So he was really surprised to find her starting to take a liking to the season.

"So a bunch of stories from homeless guys and a Christmas carol have made you totally re-think your view on the entire month of December?" he recalled. Sam nodded. Danny was at a loss for words; there _had_ to be some kind of divine intervention going on around here.

Sam noticed how quiet he was, and couldn't help but feel a little insulted. She'd left shelter and had been freezing for who-knows how long just to talk to him, she'd heard he had the same problems with Christmas this year as she had for three years, and he couldn't say anything?

"…Mr. Lancer said you had the holiday blues yourself," she prompted, hoping to get a response. It worked. Danny snapped out of his daze and got a sad look in his eye.

"Oh…" he said, his head low now, "Oh, yeah," Sam went from insulted to guilty in no time flat. She didn't want him to get upset.

"I always thought you liked Christmas," she said, a little hint of apology in her voice.

"Yeah, well…ghost troubles," Danny shrugged. It wasn't quite that simple, but that was basically it, "I'm starting to feel better about it too."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I got into a fight with my parents, just like you did. I feel like I killed the spirit," he shook his head, "I was just remembering a while ago one Christmas with my dad. We were getting ready for a snowball war, and…" he remembered that they were supposed to be talking about Sam's problems.

"…I'm glad you got into the spirit," he smiled, "So, you gonna try and get along with your parents for the season?"

"Are you kidding!?" Sam looked at him as though he were insane, "If I tell them about this they'll think I'm turning into them! They'll try and force me to go commercial! They won't understand why I'm feeling better! Why can't they accept me for who I am!?" Danny sighed. He should've known better.

"Maybe you could just take your presents up to your room and do Christmas your way then," he suggested.

"Y'know, that's actually a good idea," Sam smiled. Danny smiled back. Other than the absence of Tucker, it felt like any regular day…except that Danny had an ectoplasmic barrier around them, they were in the middle of the worst blizzard in years, and it was freezing cold. Both looked out into the weather from inside the shield; it was definitely not going to let up anytime soon. Sam yawned. Her legs still felt sore and the energy from those spaghetti-Os she had used up long ago. Danny noticed.

"You tired?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she yawned again, "Let's just keep going, I can handle it."

"Sam, if you're tired, you can get some sleep," Danny offered, "I can keep the shield up for a while," Sam studied him closely. Danny had a habit of saying he was fine or could do things when he really couldn't, just so he didn't have to inconvenience anyone else or his stubborn attitude kept him from admitting defeat. But she was tired. And he _did_ seem like he had enough energy to keep the barrier up.

"Fine," she sighed, "Thanks," she wrapped the blanket around her more tightly, lay down, and soon drifted off to sleep. Danny waited until he was sure she really was asleep before dropping his confident look.

"Now I just hope I actually _can_ keep this up," he muttered. He may not have been as tired as Sam, but he was pretty worn out.

Exactly how long Sam slept, neither of them knew. She slept well, having no dreams but slowly gaining a soft smile as her body rested. Danny kept the shield up, occasionally looking down at Sam to see if she was awake. He had wanted to talk to her about the weird thing with the squirrel and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but had been busy focusing on her problems. He didn't want to wake her up about those, so he kept them to himself. It was one of two things that were causing him problems. The barrier was draining more and more of his energy, and Danny felt his focus slip several times. Eventually the shield began thinning, letting some wind and a snowflake or two seep through. One of these landed on Sam's face, and it was enough to wake her up. She certainly seemed well rested. She looked around. The snow had piled up around the barrier, so that it was almost completely submerged in snow. She turned her focus to Danny. He was breathing heavily and it seemed like he was struggling just to keep his eyes open.

"Danny?" she tapped his shoulder. He jumped, but calmed down when he saw it was Sam, "Ready to go?" he nodded. With what seemed like a great wave of relief, he dropped the barrier. Immediately the snow that had surrounded them collapsed in, piling on top of them both.

"That could've been planned out better," Sam said dryly as they tried to pull themselves out. They managed, and in a few minutes they were heading towards FentonWorks, which couldn't be too far away now; Danny had been pretty close to it when he had followed where the spirit had pointed him. Sam led the way. Now she was the one with more energy, and was thinking more clearly now that she had rested. It was still almost impossible to fight against the wind, but they somehow managed. Danny had a harder time with it than she did. He lagged behind a couple times and once or twice fell flat on his back. Sam kept stopping so he could catch up. The farther they went, the more worried she became that keeping up that barrier had worn him out too much.

Danny _knew _that he'd spent too much power trying to keep the shield going, but he didn't want to say anything. They couldn't be too far away from his house, and there was no point in stopping again for him to rest. There was nothing to shield them from the cold if they did; there was no way he could put up another barrier. Besides, this was the first time in three years he'd seen Sam have some optimism towards the holiday season. If anything went wrong now, she could go back to loathing it in no time at all.

Once or twice Sam would look back with such a pleading expression that it was obvious she thought they'd better stop, but Danny shrugged it off and encouraged her to keep going. They did, but Sam was growing more and more against the idea.

Eventually Sam took notice of a street sign. Why she finally noticed one at this moment and not before, she had no idea, but decided to use it. It was covered in snow, but the snow had raised the level that they were walking on high enough so that she could knock it off.

"Burton Road," she read, "We're not far," she sighed in thanks, "We just need to head five blocks down and take a right, then…" she suddenly stopped. Something did not feel right with Danny.

"Danny?" she turned around. She found her best friend leaning up against a nearby building, his eyes clamped shut and his breathing heavy. He looked completely exhausted and in a considerable amount of pain. Despite the below zero temperatures, he was actually starting to sweat.

"Danny!?" Sam ran over. She completely forgot about getting indoors, her newfound confusion towards her thoughts on Christmas, and how far away they were from FentonWorks. For now, all she needed to worry about was Danny. He had _definitely_ put too much into that shield.

Danny never answered her. He slowly slid down, his breathing beginning to turn into half-moans, half-yells. Then, before he completely collapsed, two ghost-rings formed around his middle, going across his body. He became Danny Fenton once more, and collapsed to the ground. His winter clothes were gone, he was shivering like mad, and his breathing had become little more than quick hisses of air. He looked almost dead.

"_Danny?!_" Sam yelled again. She looked around desperately. There had to be someone, something that could help…_anything_. There had been the four men back in the old market! But no one or nothing was there to help. They were alone in the streets, stuck in the snow and freezing to death.

Sam had to struggle to keep herself from panicking. Now wasn't the time to panic. She pulled the blanket off herself, wrapped it around Danny, helped him onto his feet, and tried to think of what to do from here.


	7. VII

Sam pulled Danny's arm over her shoulder, trying to support him enough so he wouldn't fall over. She was slowly starting to come back into reality.

"OK," she said to herself, taking in deep breaths to calm herself down, "We're in a blizzard, Danny's unconscious, it's almost impossible to move around, but we know where we are. I can handle this," she suddenly realised how familiar this way of summarising her problems seemed. She looked at Danny, whose head was slumped away from hers.

"And now I'm starting to talk like you," she said, though she doubted Danny could hear. Shifting his body slightly, she dragged him along with her down Burton Road.

On an ordinary day, heading down five blocks wouldn't have been much of a trouble. With several feet of snow in front of them and the wind almost knocking them over, it was another story. Sam pressed forward the best she could, but the wind was again acting at its most relentless and unforgiving state. The energy she had gained back from her little nap wouldn't last that long. And there was another problem. Danny was taller and heavier than she was. Usually this was a good thing; he could give her or Tucker a lift when need be and was able to support and hold back attacks from ghosts. Now it was making it doubly hard to get around.

Their situation did not improve. The wind was shoving them back, the snow was piling up on top of them, and Danny was not faring well at all. After what had to be at least ten minutes, the sign for Burton Road was still in sight and they had barely managed to get down one block. Sam shifted Danny's weight again.

"You really need to lay off on those Nasty Burgers," she muttered, more to herself than him. Danny made a slight movement and coughing. Whether or not he had been trying to laugh she had no idea. Shifting his weight a bit more, she kept going.

Now, it happened that earlier in the year, this road had had a series of problems with electricity, mainly due to a rather violent lightning storm that summer. The lightpoles were in disrepair and very unstable. So whereas the ones by FentonWorks needed a collision with a RV to fall over, these things could bend like a twig. An especially strong current of wind blew down from a cloud and slammed down on one of the poles, snapping at its support and foundation. It rattled around, slowly leaning forward, before it cracked off the cement and went spiralling down...right towards Danny and Sam.

Danny barely had his eyes open when the pole snapped. He was barely aware of it as it headed towards them. And he just barely heard Sam's yell and just barely felt her attempts to move out of the way in time. But he only needed to be just barely aware. With a sudden burst of energy he turned them both intangible just as the pole came down on them and threw them both forward into the snow. They quickly went tangible again, Danny gasping for breath, coughing up a storm, and shivering worse than ever.

Sam started to take off her coat to put it around Danny, but he stopped her. The blanket wasn't really that warm, but he wasn't letting Sam freeze over it.

"There's…" he coughed, "…a shortcut," he pointed over to a dark alleyway nearby. With all the snow and the hour of the night (whatever it was) it was impossible to make out anything about it. Danny was so exhausted he couldn't really think about what the alley looked like himself. He wasn't even too sure if this was the right alleyway All he could remember was that he'd used an alley around here as a shortcut to his house when he needed to get back from ghost-hunting and 10:00 PM was coming up on him one time.

Sam studied the alleyway questionably. Something told her this was a bad idea. But she doubted the weather would permit her to make it another four blocks dragging Danny along. Finally, she reluctantly nodded in agreement. Helping Danny to his feet and shifting his weight around so she could help him along, she started over to the alleyway.

The street wasn't any wider than any other one in the city, but with all the snow, wind, and the need to help Danny around, it felt like walking a mile. They made it over, but found a very disappointing sight waiting for them. The alley had a wall blocking anyone from cutting through into a different street.

Despite their situation, Sam couldn't help but look at Danny with an annoyed expression. He grinned sheepishly.

"Guess I phased through it last time," he offered as an apology, still not sure if this was even the right alley. Sam sighed and shook her head.

"Where's Tucker and all his PDA maps when you need him?" she muttered.

----

Tucker had his feet up on the footrest, flipping through channels and eating heavily buttered popcorn. Having left right from school, he and his dad had gotten to their Maine cabin just before 6:00. His dad was trying to roast another batch of chestnuts on the fireplace the old-fashioned way; he'd burnt the other three. Tucker kept flipping through channels, not really watching anything, when something on The Weather Channel caught his eye.

"And the lower half of New England is still being hammered by these winter storms," the weatherwoman was saying, "Boston, Springfield, Amity Park…anyone in these cities needs to get inside immediately. The power in Amity has been down for quite a while, there are literally walls of snow blocking off roads, and the temperatures are well below freezing, folks. You need to get to shelter now…"

Tucker felt the popcorn he'd just put in his mouth fall out as it hung open in shock. His eyes were bulging out. He let the report go on without taking in anymore than he'd already heard. He didn't think he could. He was just barely aware of his dad's shouting and scramble for the fire extinguisher as he burnt yet another batch of chestnuts. He just watched the warnings for Amity Park flash across the screen. A cold, frightened shiver ran through his body, knocking the bowl of popcorn to the floor.

----

Though Danny was way too tired to phase them through the wall, he and Sam stayed in the alleyway, Sam trying to think of what to do next and Danny trying to keep himself from shivering so much. He was leaning against the wall while Sam paced around, occasionally slapping her head in an attempt to get an idea going. Occasionally she'd stop and take a look at Danny. He was always rubbing his hands together or breathing on them. Finally, watching her best friend freeze to death became too much.

"Danny, just borrow my coat or gloves or something!" she shouted, exasperated.

"Nah," Danny shook his head, "I'm fine," that was a lie, but he was going to stick to it.

"Well…" Sam sighed. His stubborn attitude could be _so_ frustrating, "…At least help me think of what to do!"

"Why don't we just wait here 'til I have enough energy to phase through the wall?"

"We don't have time! We stay out here much longer and we'll turn into ice cubes!" it was true. They'd been fine under shield because they both had full winter clothing then and the barrier had blocked out everything. But now that he wasn't in ghost-form and couldn't turn back, Danny just had the blanket. And, while the alley was a fairly good shelter, the storm was so powerful now that bits of the wind and snow made their way in. The snow just outside the alleyway had collapsed in, just like with Sam's friends before, and as the amount of snow had increased considerably since then, it fell in farther. They couldn't stay in there for much longer.

"Well…" Danny started slapping his head himself, trying to think. Going the long way probably was the only immediate option they had, but he didn't think he could walk all the way and he knew Sam had a hard time supporting him. He knew Sam was thinking the same thing. They just stayed in the alley for a while, trying to think.

"Let's just go the long way," Sam finally said, "If we stay here, we'll freeze. At least if we're moving we'll have something else to worry about."

"Sam, are you sure you…"

"Danny, drop the superhero act and face the music," she cut in dryly. Danny just stared at her for a minute. Finally, he sighed in resignation and slowly got up. He tried walking a bit, but he stumbled after a few steps, and Sam had to catch him so he didn't fall to the ground. They stepped out of the alleyway and into the streets. Sam compared it in her mind to stepping into a wind tunnel after spending your afternoon outside on a quiet day. Even if they'd spent all night in this weather, they still were never prepared for it. They kept going, both now reviewing the directions that Sam hadn't been able to finish piecing together due to Danny's collapse. They'd already gotten down one block. They had four more to go, and then they had to take a right and head up another block. Then they would be at FentonWorks. It would have been easy without the storm.

They started down the road again, having to move extremely slowly to keep from falling over. The wind and snow had not let up since they had gone into the alley; it actually felt worse. Sam, having to carry herself and Danny while fighting the elements, was fading fast, and Danny was in no condition to take over. It may have just been four blocks, but it felt like they were walking across the state of Alaska. But there was nothing else to do. And something inside her felt unusually sure. Like so many other things that had gone on that night, she couldn't explain it; everything else in her body was soaked with doubt. Yet that one bit inside her seemed the strongest of all. They pressed on.

----

Jack, Jazz and Lancer sat in the living room around the fire, silent as the grave. Even by the fire they all still felt cold.

After another two failed attempts and Lancer's getting near a heart attack on the last one, Jack had given up on the idea of using the Fenton Pods to rescue Danny. They never got any more than three yards away from the house (Jack blamed the cold; more likely than not Maddie hadn't had time to run maintenance on them in a while). The cell phone lines were still overloaded and the power was still dead everywhere else. They had no idea where Danny was.

Jazz looked over to the window. It was still nearly impossible to see outside due to the snow and wind, which only seemed to be getting worse. Twice a bit of the cold air had blown down through the chimney and into the fireplace, causing for the need to use up more wood faster. But she didn't care about that. Her eyes were blood-shot from staring out the window while hardly ever blinking so much. She, like everyone else, had dark circles around her eyes from worry and her skin was sickly pale. Everyone feared the worst had already happened.

----

Still half-carrying Danny through the snow for who-knows how long, Sam finally looked up. She found herself in the middle of the road in front of FentonWorks. She blinked, moment, thinking the cold must be making her delusional. When the house didn't appear after she stared at it for several minutes, she started for the house. Whether this was divine intervention, ghostly assistance, or pure Christmas magic, she didn't know or care. She stumbled up to the doorstep with Danny in tow.

---

Jack was going through the channels on the TV, trying to find The Weather Channel or any station with some report on the weather. He passed a few, and with every one came the same report; the storm showed no signs of stopping. With every report the horror on everyone's faces sank in deeper. It looked as though this holiday season, things would turn out the way of _Batman Returns_ instead of _A Christmas Carol_.

Everyone was so gloomy they barely heard the knock at the door.

"Is that the door?" Maddie's voice coming up from the basement brought them back into reality. The knock came again, a bit louder this time, and everyone turned towards the door. Jack approached it cautiously, as if he were walking towards a potentially dangerous beast. Jazz didn't move, but eyed the door with a mix of suspicion and hope.

'_It could be…'_ she thought, _'but if it wasn't…who else would it…'_ she held her breath as Jack slowly creaked the door open. Danny and Sam fell in with a huge amount of snow, gasping for breath and looking colder than ice. Sam was still helping Danny along. Jazz saw that Danny's winter clothes were gone and that he only had a blanket, but at the moment, she found herself hard-pressed to care about that. She literally jumped over the chair she was sitting on and ran over, grabbing both Danny and Sam in a big hug. If that hadn't knocked what little wind they had left out of them, then Jack's huge bear hug that got all three of them definitely did.

"Maddie!" Jack was beside himself with joy, "He made it! Oh, that's my boy!" he finally set everyone down, still resting his arm on Danny's shoulder. Danny's eyes darted over to an old-fashioned clock on the mantle, one that didn't have to be re-set. It was 9:15.

"Told you I'd be back by ten," he smiled weakly. Jack looked over at the clock too, laughed, and ruffled Danny's hair, grabbing hold of him again.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales, are you two all right?" Lancer asked as he walked over, looking as relieved as anyone else. Sam nodded, and this time it was true.

----

Danny and Sam sat in the kitchen, wrapped in dry blankets from upstairs. It had been amazing that they didn't have any real frostbite, let alone manage to get through the storm. Danny had been worse off; no one knew where his winter clothes went, and he didn't seem to be able to remember (_'So he says,'_ Jazz thought to herself with a smile). Jazz was making them some hot chocolate now. Jack had taken over for Maddie in the basement (she had nearly knocked Danny over with all her hugging and kissing, then eventually joined Jack in the basement for something) and Lancer had returned to his spot by the fire.

"So where exactly were you, Sam?" Jazz asked.

"The park," Sam said.

"Wait," Jazz stopped getting the cocoa ready, "That's on the opposite side of town from the forest. To meet up Danny would either have to pass by here or you'd have to pass by here."

"Yeah…" Sam nodded, not sure she liked where this was going.

"Well what the heck's wrong with you two!?" Jazz exclaimed, "You didn't have enough brains to come in when you walked by, whichever one of you did!?" Danny and Sam took offence for a second, but then they saw the grin on Jazz's face. Danny sighed, but he couldn't help but smile back.

"Why don't you two go by the fire?" Jazz offered, "I'll bring in the hot chocolate when it's done."

"Sure," they both got up. They had just reached the doorway when Jazz whistled and pointed up to the ceiling, her grin going from kind to sly. There was a bit of mistletoe hanging above the doorway. Danny had had too much else to worry about tonight to remember where all of those were placed. He and Sam quickly moved out from under it and into the living room. Jazz shook her head and went back to work.

Danny and Sam sat down on the couch by the fire. Lancer was also there, at the right side of the couch, sneezing like mad. They just sat there for a few minutes, warming up without really thinking anything. After a while Jazz brought in their cocoa. They'd gone through about half of it when Jack came up from the lab, looking tired but happy.

"Samantha," he walked over, "I tapped into the cable line your parents used and managed to use the monitors in the lab and your TV to form a temporary Fenton Visual Communication Unit. I let them know you're here. They said to tell you they don't care if it involves swimming in Amity Park Park Lake tomorrow, this year they're doing Christmas however you want it," Sam almost spilled her hot chocolate. There had been nothing truly fantastic or unusual about how they had managed to get indoors. But her encounter with the four men, the wind changing around when she had most needed it to, and the mere fact that they'd survived were enough to convince her; regardless of what commercialism did to it, the Christmas spirit as she had hoped for it _did_ exist. She had planned to take Danny's advice and have her own Christmas up in her room. But she never, _never_ imagined that her parents, her family would offer to do this. She couldn't think of anything to say. She just smiled and nodded.

"I checked the latest weather bulletins," Jack resumed after nodding back, "The storm's still strong, but by tomorrow around noon it should all be over," he yawned, "I'm bushed. I think I'll turn in for the night. Your mother's downstairs minding the generator. You want some tunes?" both Danny and Sam nodded. Jack turned on the radio. "The Christmas Song" was playing.

"Merry Christmas," Jack yawned again and headed upstairs. Sam yawned herself. She may have had that nap, but dragging Danny around in a blizzard quickly got her worn out again.

"Merry Christmas, Danny," Sam smiled a bit wider. Danny eyed her strangely for a second, then returned the grin.

"Merry Christmas, Sam," he shrugged and laughed. Sam returned the laugh and drained the last of her hot chocolate. She wrapped herself more tightly in the blankets around her and within minutes was fast asleep. Danny just watched her contentedly, still smiling. He hadn't seen her like this in three years.

"Looks like you two have cleared off your holiday blues," Lancer observed, wearing a grin himself.

"Yeah," Danny nodded, "I think I would've rather done your way, though," Lancer laughed and patted Danny on the shoulder. Immediately after he went into a sneezing fit. Danny turned back to the fire with a sigh. They'd seen his car and the lightpole on the way in. They also saw three Fenton Pods (or whatever his dad called them), and he could guess why they got put into use. It made him feel a lot better about the fight earlier that evening; the mood _hadn't_ been killed. He felt something fall onto his shoulder; Sam's head was leaning against it. He meant to shrug her off, but didn't he didn't really mind. And something else came to mind at that moment anyway.

A lot of what had happened that night was unexplainable. The squirrel leading him to shelter, Sam happening to run into four homeless guys who treated Christmas the way she thought it should be treated, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come…none of it seemed possible. The mere fact they weren't dead or frostbitten everywhere was a miracle itself. Even Sam's change of mind seemed unreal. In his mind flashed images of Jazz's figurines and the Christmas tree. He looked up at the ceiling.

"Thank you," he whispered. He got no reply, but a happy, sleepy feeling that overcame his body felt like one. He soon dozed off himself. His head ended up unintentionally close to Sam's. The song kept playing as the fire burned away, the snow still coming down outside.

And Christmas was still a few days away.

_**The End**_

* * *

Happy Holidays ;)I'm shutting down all my projects 'til after New Years, but rest assured; those fics I said I would update within the first two weeks of January _will_ get updated by then.

wafische89


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